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I once strongly considered converting from Roman to Anglican Catholic, likely agonizing as much as Newman, who converted in the opposite direction. How many times have progressive Roman Catholics been sarcastically urged to go ahead and convert by various fundamentalistic traditionalists since our beliefs were "not in keeping with the faith?" Below, is an earnest and neither casual nor cursory treatment of the subject. I submit these materials with a focus on the PROCESSES by which we come to decisions and beliefs and not so much on any individual differences in belief between our communions. (The thread would be too unwieldly if we tried to treat individual church disciplines and moral doctrines.) After all, while there has never been an infallible papal pronouncement to which I could not give my wholehearted assent, I otherwise do adamantly disagree with many hierarchical positions such as regarding a married priesthood, women priests, obligatory confession, eucharistic sharing, divorce and remarriage, artificial contraception, various so-called grave & intrinsic moral disorders of human sexuality or any indubitable and a priori definitions employed vis a vis human personhood and theological anthropology. At times, I truly have wondered if I belonged to Rome or Canterbury, and I suspect many others have, too, and, perhaps, still do? My short answer is: You're already home; take a look around ... In other words, for example, take a look, below, at some excerpts from the September 2007 report of the International Anglican - Roman Catholic Commission for Unity and Mission: Growing Together in Unity and Mission: Building on 40 years of Anglican - Roman Catholic Dialogue. Does anyone see any differences in essential dogma? Are some of you not rather surprised at the extent of agreement, especially given the nature of same? Are our differences not rather located in such accidentals as matters of church discipline or in such moral teachings where Catholics can exercise legitimate choices in their moral decision-making? (To be sure, there has been a creeping infallibility in such differences but there have never been infallible pronouncements regarding same.) "As we shall see, reputable theologians defend positions on moral issues contrary to the official teaching of the Roman magisterium. If Catholics have the right to follow such options, they must have the right to know that the options exist. It is wrong to attempt to conceal such knowledge from Catholics. It is wrong to present the official teachings, in Rahner's words, as though there were no doubt whatever about their definitive correctness and as though further discussion about the matter by Catholic theologians would be inappropriate....To deprive Catholics of the knowledge of legitimate choices in their moral decision-making, to insist that moral issues are closed when actually they are still open, is itself immoral." See: �Probabilism: The Right to Know of Moral Options�, which is the third chapter of __Why You Can Disagree and Remain a Faithful Catholic__ For those who have neither the time nor inclination for a long post, you can safely consider the above as an executive summary. My conclusion is that we belong neither to Rome nor Canterbury, but to the Perfector and Finisher of our faith. And I'm going to submit to ever-ongoing finishing by blooming where I was planted among my family, friends and co-religionists, enjoying the very special communion between our Anglican, Roman and Orthodox traditions, the special fellowship of all my Christian sisters and brothers, and the general fellowship of all persons of goodwill. Respectfully, JB I gathered these excerpts together to highlight and summarize the report but recognize these affirmations should not be taken out of context. So, I made this url where the entire document can be accessed: http://tinyurl.com/35p69h to foster the wide study of these agreed statements. Below is my heavily redacted summary. Below are excerpts recognizing DIVERGENCES regarding: 1) papal and teaching authority 2) the recognition and validity of Anglican Orders and ministries 3) ordination of women 4) eucharistic sharing 5) obligatory confession 6) divorce and remarriage 7) the precise moment a human person is formed 8) methods of birth control 9) homosexual activity and 10) human sexuality. Thanks, JB Teasing out further nuances between dogma, doctrine and discipline and learning from the via media Ormond Rush writes, in Determining Catholic Orthodoxy: Monologue or Dialogue (PACIFICA 12 (JUNE 1999): Rush continues: In that Pacifica article, Rush draws distinctions between: 1) revelation as propositional, where faith is primarily assent and revelation as personalist , where faith is the response of the whole person in loving self-surrender to God; 2) verbal orthodoxy and lived orthopraxy; 3) the Christological and pneumatological; 4) hierarchical ecclesiology and communio ecclesiology; and 5) monologic notion of authority evoking passive obedience and dialogic notion of authority evoking active obedience. Rush describes the extremes of on one hand, 1) dogmatic maximalism , where all beliefs are given equal weight; 2) magisterial maximalism , where the ecclesial magisterium, alone, has access to the Holy Spirit;3) dogmatic ahistoricism , where God's meaning and will are fixed and clear to be seen; and, on the other hand, 1) dogmatic minimalism , where all dogmatic statements are equally unimportant; 2) magisterial minimalism , where communal guidance in interpretation is superfluous; 3) dogmatic historicism , with an unmitigated relativist position regarding human knowledge. Rush then describes and commends a VIA MEDIA between the positions. He notes that the church does not call the faithful that we may believe in dogma, doctrine and disciplines but, rather, to belief in God . He describes how statements vary in relationship to the foundation of faith vis a vis a Hierarchy of Truth and thus have different weight: to be believed as divinely revealed; to be held as definitively proposed; or as nondefinitively taught and requiring obsequium religiosum (see discussion below). The faithful reception of revelation requires interplay between the different "witnesses" of revelation: scripture, tradition, magisterium, sensus fidelium, theological scholarship, including reason (philosophy) and experience (biological & behavioral sciences, personal testimonies, etc). Rush thus asks: Rush further asks: As for obsequium religiosum, from http://www.womenpriests.org/teaching/orsy3_2.asp
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Great topic and a very substantive opener, JB. I do empathize with the temptation to change traditions, but, like you, have decided to bloom where planted, even though misgivings in a number of areas have bothered me for years. I found it significant that the agreements between Catholics and Anglicans pertain to the issues I would consider most relevant to Christian faith, while those where disagreements exist pertain, for the most part, to matters of Holy Orders, sacramental theology, and human sexuality. These, too, are important issues, but not as important as those where agreements exist. There is a hierarchy of truth in Catholicism, though one will not find this enumerated anywhere. Still, the fact remains that not all teachings are equally important, which mitigates against a "Catholic fundamentalism." Unfortunately, there has been a growing number of such during the past two decades, and their presence on the web is quite strong. | ||||
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And, I understand, their presence in seminaries is also quite strong? due to any number of sociological and other reasons? such as a reaction to postmodernism? See Nearing Retirement, Priests of the 60�s Fear Legacy Is Lost
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Right, JB. The younger priests do seem to be very much on the conservative side, which isn't necessarily a bad thing. But as one of those older, Vatican II - era priests told me recently, "If only they at least loved the people!" Many do, of course, but I don't think it bodes well for clerical leadership unto a more progressive Church. Seminaries are also more conservative and focused on apologetics and orthodoxy than they were a couple of decades ago. Pendulum swinging. Hard to see where the movement the other way will come from. Catholicism is so maligned by evangelicals and fundamentalists that something of a retrenchment reaction among Catholic teachers has set in. | ||||
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Yes, not necessarily. I like to think of liberal and conservative, progressive and traditionalist, in terms of charisms, something analogous to pilgrims and settlers. And there is room for the via media, the middle path, something analogous to bridge-builders, which might be the loneliest and most difficult for, as Richard Rohr observes, they get walked on by folks coming from both directions. Unfortunately, too much of what we see is better described in terms of maximalism, minimalism and a/historicism. Too many so-called progressives consider essential and core teachings as accidental and peripheral; too many so-called traditionalists consider accidental and peripheral teachings as essential and core. In essentials, unity; in accidentals, diversity; in all things, charity. (attributed to Augustine) | ||||
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johnboy, My Secret Weapons when I get to feeling they way you have described are my palm sized copies of The Way to Love by Tony de Mello and The Zen Teaching of Huang Po, John Blofeld's translation. They fir neatly into the shoulder pocket of my leather jacket and are ideal thought/concept/abstraction stoppers. A taste: http://www.geocites.com/lesliebarclay/HuangPo1.html http://dharmamind.net/HP.htm http://www.allspirit.co.uk/huangpo.html You can thought/concept/abstraction stop just as well in an Anglican or Roman church as you can standing out-of-doors or in your home.  See Awakenings chapter 20, Freedom from Cultural Conditioning by Father Thomas Keating. shalom, caritas, lennon and norwich, spoonage | ||||
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Your top link does not work, Michael. | ||
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This is a great topic for me. I am a person who was tutored in liturgy by the Anglican Communion and for short time left it do to Conservative reaction in the Anglo Catholic community over female ordination only to find myself longing for and coming home to Canterbury because of the way the Episcopal Church practices Hooker's three legged stool and adding the leg of experience. Honestly I do not think functionally I was ever Roman Catholic and would not have been excepted by the new conservative elite because I attended a Vatican 2 hybrid catholic mega church based on the Willow Creek model with sacraments heavily infleunced by Evangelicalism and the Charismatic Renewal. The Priest was always in trouble with the diocese.This left me with a desire to go home to old fashion english liturgy sacraments and the Book of Common Prayer. Much of the new Roman Catholic vernacular liturgy as lost the mystery and transcendence of the mass. This something Anglicans and orthodox are good at. My other reason is I do not feel the need to define everything to the point of splitting hairs. I belleve that Rome tends to dogma heavy. the fact I read Origin and plagesius and my theology is semi pelagenist though excepted in the pale of orthodoxy is heavily debated against by the modernist Thomist and Augustinian scholars. The Church of England allows for greater freedom of thought something very attractive to me while keeping its catholicity. So here i am an Anglo Catholic who has tasted the bark of Rome and came home proving again the grass is not greener on the other side. | |||
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Shalom Place Community Shalom Place Discussion Groups General Discussion Forums Christian Morality and Theology Discipline, Doctrine & Dogma in Roman-Anglican Catholic Dialogue